You’re not meant to think about work on holiday, but as we were in a bona fide log cabin in the middle of a Swedish forest, it was unavoidable. The only bit of the house that wasn’t timber was the grass roof, and I’m sure there were a couple of saplings peering through the pasture. To put the timber lid on it, two artics drew up in the field alongside and unloaded great lengths of lumber to make the stage for the local mid-summer’s celebrations.
The main thought all this triggered was: if only timber and timber products were as widely specified and actively desired in the UK as they are in Sweden. The good news I discovered on my return, is that still more organisations and companies are pumping up the promotional volume to chivvy our market in the Nordic direction. The Scottish Timber Trade Association has recruited a PR consultant and launched a campaign targeting specifiers and consumers and Richard Burbidge has put another £250,000 into brand building.
Others report that their investment in advertising and marketing timber, both generically and in the form of specific products, is paying dividends. The Northern Ireland Timber Trade Association says its dry-graded timber seminars have attracted over 400 builders and architects. And, in our business feature, other key players discuss their successful promotional initiatives.
The cloud accompanying this silver lining is the tendency of some to focus their most aggressive marketing and sales tactics against other companies and products in the timber sector.
Of course, a degree of inter-industry competitivenesss is natural. It makes for lean, mean businesses. But, at the end of the day, it doesn’t grow the market and, as TTF president Philip Underwood pointed out around the time of the Wood for Good launch, over-doing it leaves rival materials free to make hay.
